Tora no Maki

Tiger Tateishi first began drawing cartoons in 1964, inspired by copies of MAD Magazine which occupation forces had left behind. Before moving to Milan in 1969, Tateishi regularly contributed to manga magazines. In Milan, while working for Ettore Sottsass at Olivetti, he began creating the stunning comic panel layout paintings posthumously collected in the book Moon Trax. Also around this time, as Fumiko Tateishi explains, Tiger "had a strong desire to make a real comic book, and spent almost five years working on the pictures for Tora no Maki. At first, Penguin Books in London were considering publishing it, and they had the originals for quite a while, but after a call from Seigow Matsuoka at Kousakusha in Tokyo, the book was eventually brought out in Japan." (Source: 50 Watts Books)